A few random thoughts on a May afternoon when the sun ought to be shining…

Not much reason to shine — or celebrate — with the news that the home of US Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito displayed a “Stop the Steal” sign in January 2021 when Trump supporters were insisting falsely that Biden stole the election. Court justices are supposed to be impartial, neutral in their public lives; this is a disgusting violation of that. I wish the court would reprimand its own (and while they’re at it deal with the lifestyle abuses from Justice Clarence Thomas). Actually I’d like to see it rules that these justices have violated judicial codes of behavior and should be suspended or removed from office — or left outside in the village stocks.

My suggestion: Make Thomas pay all for the gifts he received including free trips and merchandise. Make Alito go sit in Trump’s courtroom every single day until he wants to throw up. Then let him throw up. Preferably you-know-where…*******

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You have to admire Marjorie Taylor Greene. Well, actually no you don’t. And shouldn’t. Not that it matters. she caused a commotion in a House committee hearing this week when she started talking about non-related proposals then insulted a colleague (a female Democrat), refused go apologize, and generally comported herself like an entitled nitwit. Pretty close to accurate there, I think maybe.

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Speaking of nitwits, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz traveled to New York this week so he could sit in on Trump’s sexual misbehavior trial. I wonder if he’s just wanting an advance look prior to his own trial.

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And of course I shouldn’t be calling legislators nitwits. Name calling resolves nothing and only weakens the discussion of the one calling out those names. Unless of course you are telling the truth. Especially about Justice Alito, who shuld be impeached before the weekend is out. And that’s not name calling.

Those poor Republican women. Always getting the blame for something. And they’re just being themselves.

I mean, there was Rep. Lauren Boebert, the self-assured hand-job expert from Colorado, who was merely demonstrating affectionate grips on her boyfriend when she got both of them thrown out of a theater. And she was vaping, too, showing how proudly she conforms to the desires of today’s young people.

Then there’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the North Georgia congresswoman who demands our country be properly concerned about Jewish space lasers. Not sure what they are, but I’m sure she’s serious about them.

And now we have Gov. Kristi Noem of North Dakota — or is it South Dakota? Always been a little confused about that — who found it imperative to murder her doggie for misbehavior. Now before anyone gets upset over that, let’s explain that shooting puppies isn’t just a Republican thing, although I can’t recall anyone else doing it lately.

And after all, it’s not like the dog was a horse who broke his leg and had to be put down. Nope, this dog was just barking and snapping (at Jewish space lasers, maybe?), and we all know that’s totally unacceptable. So we can call it a mercy murder, although it is a trifle difficult to explain why she photographed it so carefully.

Oh well, I’m sure Dementia Don could explain it all if only he didn’t have to spend all his time in courtrooms. Except for a few minutes he got to meet with daffy Ron DeSantis over the weekend. I’m sure that went well. Two really lovable guys just having a get together. My heart swells.

I don’t want to get all in a lather over this, so let’s just decide to properly call Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a blithering idiot.

Kennedy, of course, is the guy who is opposed to vaccines and other important public health measures and who is running a forlorn, necessarily misbegotten campaign for the presidency. Today he announced he has selected a vice presidential, an unknown woman who apparently believes some of the crap that Kennedy espouses. Oops, sorry, that was not intended. Let’s say she supports some of Kennedy’s bizarre ideas about government and private industry conspiracies not to mention the notion that getting vaccines will give human beings tails. Or send them to hell. Or whatever.

Kennedy’s family — the Kennedy clan of Massachusetts — think he’s a danger and a moron. They have unanimously renounced his candidacy. But of course that’s just in the family.

With this news, we are left with the depressing thought that this presidential race — with aging Joe Biden and contemptible criminal and moral pig “Dementia Don” Trump — apparently somehow can get even worse.

Can things get worse?

Well, has Marjorie Taylor Green said anything today?

The noise about electric cars is getting louder. The Biden administration is heavily promoting the sale of EVs by toughening and pushing emissions rules in an effort to make the sale of gas combustion car engines more problematic by the early 2030s. more electric vehicles, less climate issues, they claim.

Well, maybe. But I am unhappy about this proposal (which is at least, technically, not a ban on gas engines) for several reasons. One, I don’t like EVs. Aesthetically, I don’t find them attractive or appealing in their design. Just boxes. Second, I don’t care how fast or quickly they can go; there’s no place on the roads where that can or should be enjoyed (try that on I-84 and see what happens). Third, there aren’t enough charging stations around to make me feel at all comfortable about undertaking any long drives. Fourth, electricity is cheaper than gasoline — for now — but it ain’t exactly cheap.

And last, but hardly least, I don’t like the deal EV owners get ay my expense. EVs weigh a lot more than gas-powered vehicles and cause proportionately more damage to the roads. Who pays for the road maintenance? Not EVs. The rest of us are paying gas taxes, highway taxes that EV owners don’t have to consider. That has to change.

Is there a quick solution to these matters? Well, maybe, as some suggest, ramping up the manufacture and purchasing of hybrids would help in the interim. Lighter weight, lower prices, still paying some gas taxes.

But I admit I’m just not happy being advised that I need to look at EVs going forward. There needs to be some big changes made before I’m willing to seriously consider such a step. And in the meantime don’t make noises like you want to take away my gas-powered car.

I’m concerned that if Biden pushes this proposal hard he may lose votes from those who may concur with at least some of what I’m writing here. Don’t try to push me out of my car. Please. It’s just good sense.

Let’s get to the news … In Hungary a small-town entrepreneur managed to secure governmental grounding to build an elevated wooden canopy to enable neighbors and visitors to enjoy the beautiful forest outside his village. The money was approved, the canopy built, and everything is great.

Oh, not so fast. It turns out that slick entrepreneur had all the trees in the forest cut down before the canopy was constructed, so now the raised walkway offers visitors a view of — wait for it — absolutely nothing. Just a plain piece of flat, bare land.

You can count the number of visitors now on one finger…

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Never say that everyone needs constants in their life. A French mathematician has won a $700,000 prize — a really notable honor — for his studies in randomness. And by randomness we mean he has been researching the differences in the height of ocean waves, the weight of newborns, and the probability of coin flips.

Amazing stuff. I guess. I’m sure there are real-world benefits that I am too obtuse to recognize, and I wish the professor well. Probably.

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First England’s poor Princess Catherine got all the blame for her photoshopped picture of her royal family. Shame on her for trying to deceive us. Now she being hailed as a victim because of the criticism she received. Neither view seems much to the point.

Rather, given the exalted position of the royals and admitted public interest in them — often just nosy — there would seem to be at least a minor obligation on them to oblige and thereby earn their money (or status). So, couldn’t the palace have provided a few significant details about Catherine’s health, the issue that led to all of this silly hoorah? We can skip the details, but letting us plebeians know whether she’s got a hernias or is dying would be appropriate and not too serious an invasion of that heralded royal privacy.

After all, we need to know thew truth. And did you know that Princess Diana is actually working at a diner in Idaho?

I last visited Hong Kong in 1996, the year before the British handed the colony back to China. It was a fun, memorable experience in a city of astonishing diversity and adversity as it awaited the arrival of the mainland government.

It’s been a difficult time for Hong Kong since that time, with protests over growing mainland influence and diminishing freedoms for citizen involvement, free press and access to the highest levels of government. It seems to have culminated in the worst scenario this week with Hong Kong legislators — mostly backers of China’s communist leader Xi Jinping — approving new national security laws that crack down on those who are in opposition. The freedoms that once were the hallmark of Hong Kong’s autonomy are rapidly disappearing.

Analysts warn this likely will have a chilling effect not only on the behaviors of individuals living in Hong Kong but with businesses based in and outside of the city. And that could mean serious trouble for Hong Kong’s once thriving economy. There is even a question arising now as to whether Hong Kong will remain a major international city.

From my tourist standpoint, it is all in the past. I’ll never go back as much as I relished my visits and desire to return. It is no longer a city of wonder and challenge and delight. It is a communist-ruled landscape, and I weep for its people and those who support their freedoms.

Enough. I’ ve dithered around this issue too much for too long.

Let’s get straight to it: Enough with the support in various ways for Israel and its right-wing government obsessed with self preservation at the expense of decency and humanity.

What Hamas did to Israel on October 7 was horrible. There is no way anyone can or should try to sugarcoat the atrocities this miserable group of terrorists inflicted on Israelis. Israel’s determination to strike back at Hamas is understandable and, in my mind, quite justified.

What isn’t justified is the continuing slaughter of Palestinian civilians — tens of thousands of them — through crippling invasion, abandonment and starvation. Killing innocents in pursuit of military goals is not acceptable. And it’s time the United States recognized that publicly and policy-wise and halted military assistance to Israel. Repeat: STOP military aid to Israel. And stop it immediately.

This is not a matter of anti-Semitism. Hardly. It is a matter of doing the right thing, in this instance saving the lives of innocent man, women and children. There can no longer be any excuse for Israel’s deadly pursuits in Gaza. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu is now no less terrorist-focused than the Hamas it seeks to destroy.

What’s needed is a cease-fire — and a two-state solution to the existence of Israel and Palestine. Ceasing US aid may be the trigger that gets that solution closer to reality. But regardless, military aid to this government must be halted. I hope President Biden will end the halfway actions and do that is needed: end the war and make the peace happen.

Enough dithering about this. Get it done.

So, the vow was not to talk so much about politics. Ok, then let’s shift the conversation to aging, specifically just how President Joe Biden is doing. (Yes, I know that sounds a lot like politics, but whatever…)

Is Joe fading away from us? Is his age compromising his mental acuity? Is he fit to be our President? Quick bottom line is — wait for it — I don’t really know, I’m not a neuropathologist nor knowledgeable in cognitive thinking. So in other words, I’m perfectly qualified to offer some quick thoughts on this meaty topic.

We know Biden slips up. We don’t know that the slip-ups have has occurred which involve anything affecting American policy or security. His closest aides say it hasn’t happened, and they would seem to have more credibility that those with even less insight on the other side.

Physical frailty may be an issue — hard to me and most everyone else to know for sure — but mental sharpness for Biden doesn’t seem to be creating any major concerns. Of course the MAGAites disagree. They have jumped in to proclaim Biden unfit for office, quite willing to ignore dementia don’s obvious mental challenges (not to mention moral lapses).

All of which leaves us — those of us who can’t claim authority in these matters — worried and uncertain. Worried because no matter Biden’s mental state he is still higher than the trump bar of ineptitude, criminality and democracy-bashing.

So let’s leave it at that. Uncertainty and concern about Biden. At the least he’s not as wretched as trump with the latter’s loud and continuing endorsement of the criminal autocrat Putin. Hey, maybe there’s an idea for trump’s running mate?????

Well, welcome to 2024. It’s been a long time since …. since I last posted here.

Not sure exactly why that’s the case. For a time it was trump weariness; how many times can you mention a creep like dementia don without finding yourself exhausted by his all-consuming lies, narcissism and general lack of intellectual awareness?

Maybe there are other reasons, but it doesn’t seem worth wasting space to go back over them. So, it’s 2024, let’s look ahead, and let’s try to avoid a relentless focus on politics and the presidential election this year. In other words, let’s aim for something a little higher, maybe something a tad more engaging for a wider audience (if, in fact, there is any audience left out there).

And what would that be exactly? Stay tuned. Please. I promise something better is on the way. Even if I’m in the process of discovering just what it is.

Thank you.

I’ve been debating for several weeks now whether or not to purchase a copy of Maggie Haberman’s new book about Donald Trump, “Confidence Man.”

So what, you might fairly ask, is that debate all about? After all, it’s just a book. And it’s a good book, too, even without having read it. Maggie Haberman is an experienced reporter for The New York Times and one of the best reporters in American journalism. She is unfailingly honest, reliable and uncommonly perceptive and intuitive. She’s extraordinarily good at her profession.

The problem for me is neither the quality of the book nor her reporting and writing. It’s the subject, of course: Lying Donald Trump: specifically, do I really want to waste any part of my life and the days I have left in it reading about that treasonous ex-president?

It’s a discussion I’ve been having, as mentioned, and I finally decided that as much as I admire Maggie Haberman, I do not want to devote time to her subject. And while it could be argued that every American ought to know as much as possible about their ego-driven, weak-minded ex, having further confirmation of his myriad inadequacies is just not something I want. Even in glorious, knowledgeable prose.

So, I plead guilty to failing in a measure of my civic responsibility. Instead, with a smile, I’ll devote a little time to several other biographical subjects: Henry VIII, Pol Pot, Stalin, maybe even Attila. You know, some uplifting sort of people.